Out of Time

By Rich Cole

Jack boards a train and heads to the bathroom, leaving his personal effects unguarded. What happens when an opportunistic thief notices and acts on impulse? What will happen in the bathroom? Will Jack survive and will he see his family again?

With thrilling suspense as hard to keep up with as the high speed train they're on, Out of Time contains Crime, intrigue, drama and suspence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Seagull Editions
• Release date: May 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223826835

Book preview

Out of Time

© 2021 Seagull Editions s.r.l.

www.seagulleditions.com

Chapter 1

The slow tick of the watch on his wrist seems to take an hour to count down one minute. He has fourteen more to go. Minutes, not hours. The soft sound of rapid tapping reaches his ears. He looks down. It's his feet belying his impatience without his permission. Jack Reynolds decides he's going to stop obsessively checking his watch every ten seconds, as it's not helping pass the time any faster. His fingers twitch.

The soft hubbub of voices from the station barely ten steps from the open train doors travel on the chilly winter breeze. Jack wishes they'd stop talking and board the train. He'd like to get home some time today. His fingers tap his knees, the armrests of the comfy seat he's situated in, the little ledge below the window, before settling on twisting his wedding ring compulsively around his finger.

He checks his watch again. He has to wait another twelve minutes. Might as well be twelve days. He groans and thumps his head against the back of his seat, squeezing his eyes tightly shut and massaging the bridge of his nose.

The quick tap of footsteps on concrete, then quieter as they step onto the carpet of the car catch Jack's attention. He lowers his head and opens his eyes, studying the newcomer.

It's a man, without luggage, looking quite windswept. His nose is pink, and he has a scarf wrapped around his neck, up to his ears. The tips of his ears are covered by a winter hat. He's carrying something warm to drink, sweet-smelling steam billowing out of the top of the paper cup. He catches Jack's eye and smiles at him. At least, Jack assumes he smiles at him. His mouth is covered by the scarf, only the crinkling of his eyes gives his expression away.

The passenger chooses his seat across the center aisle from Jack. He appears to have a ritual when boarding trains. First he shrugs his cardigan off, since inside the train car is a few degrees warmer than outside. Then he sits, draping the garment over his legs, and digs around in one of the side pockets. He finds what he's looking for after a short while of rummaging. It's a cylindrical container of pills.

The 'pop' of the lid coming off echoes around the train car. He shakes two white pills into his palm. Then he puts them in his mouth and takes a sip of his drink in one smooth movement. He tosses his head back and audibly gulps.

The scent of whatever the man is drinking has permeated the carriage, and it smells of strawberries. Jack sighs. Andrea loves strawberries. She also loves the color purple, kittens, and is allergic to bees. She has a lot of attitude for a nearly-twelve-year-old. It's her birthday in two days, something she won't let him forget.

He thinks back to this morning when she stood in front of him, clad head to toe in Hello Kitty pajamas. She had her hands on her hips, and her blonde hair was glinting in the light of the rising sun, puffed up around her head like cotton wool. The picture of pre-teen attitude. He thinks she was reminding him to get her a present or not to bother coming home tonight, like some sort of mafia boss. She was being so serious and he was trying so hard not to laugh.

His wife, Sophia, however, had a terrible poker face. As such, she had situated herself behind the little girl and had a hand clamped over her mouth to hide her smile. Her shoulders were shaking with laughter, and watching her was making it hard for him to keep his composure.

Andrea was none the wiser. He had bitten the inside of his cheek to keep himself from smiling, so much so, the metallic taste of blood blossomed over his tongue. When he replied that he'd get her present, he couldn't deny his voice shook a little. He then hugged her goodbye. She kissed him on the cheek. She was a daddy's girl and had been from the moment she was born.

His wife teasingly adopted her daughter's tone of voice to remind him to get the little girl her birthday present as well, and he sighed in mock annoyance before pulling her in for a hug and then giving her a dip-kiss goodbye. The sound of Andrea's fake-retching was the background to their kiss, and when Jack righted them both, he was proud to say Sophia looked a little dazed.

Soft snoring from the passenger pulls him out of his memories. Jack reaches down for the briefcase between his feet. The soft clicking sounds of the clasps are a reassuring sound to him.

He liked dependable things, like watches and briefcase clasps. They didn't let you down like people often did.

Lifting the lid of the case, the hinges not making a sound, (he oils them regularly) he checks inside. He hasn't let the case out of his sight, but rather be better safe than sorry. He takes a quick inventory. Taped to the inside of the lid is his wife and daughter pulling funny faces at him. He smiles fondly and strokes their faces.

His work diary, chronicling everything he did, every day, was taking up a lot of the area, lying in the middle of the case. Around the edges of the book were a few centimeters of space.

In the space to the left of it was his little box of pills. He checks his watch again with a tilt of his wrist. He needs to take his next dose in half an hour. His wallet is sitting on top of the diary, the well worn, yet polished black leather catching the light of the fluorescent bulb above his head. To the right is a rectangular shaped parcel wrapped in lavender-colored tissue paper. It's only about the width of Jack's thumb, and the length of his middle finger. Attached to it is a small square card with pink and purple balloons on the front.

Jack sighs in a whoosh of breath, his shoulders relaxing with relief. He wasn't even aware he had tensed them up. He doesn't know what he'd do if he'd lost the package, which is why he's anxious to get home soon. He imagines the disappointed look on his little girl's face if there was no present, and a pang of agony shoots through his heart.

Jack hisses out a breath through his teeth, the pain felt like something akin to an arrow in the chest. As quickly as it arrived, the feeling is gone though, and he checks his watch again. Seven minutes left.

He clips the lid of the briefcase down and carefully, almost reverently, pushes it under his seat. It's out of the way and hidden there. He stands up and stretches, rubbing his eyes. The carriage was a little warm now that he thinks about it. Perhaps his fellow passenger had the right idea. He shrugs his jacket off. Deciding that it'll be safe draped over the back of his chair, he does exactly that.

He looks out of the train car doors for a second. An official-looking man is ringing a bell for final boarding. Even though he's standing there, with the wind biting through his shirt, Jack still feels a trickle of sweat run down the center of his spine. He's hot. Uncomfortably so.

Jack turns on his heel and faces the interior of the car again. The cream-colored walls and floor, with wood accents, should be soothing, he supposes. At this point, however, everything is just too bright. The bell-ringing outside sounds like he's standing underneath a church bell while it's being rung, the soft snoring of his fellow passenger sounds like someone on a ventilator, the faint buzzing of the fluorescent light bulbs in the cabin sound like a horde of angry bees. Everything is just too close. He can't take it anymore.

His breathing is coming out in pants. He presses his hands over his ears. Looking around wildly, he sees the sign directing him to the bathroom. Jack sprints down the center aisle. He prays it's unoccupied, and when he bursts his way in, mercifully, it is. Somehow he remembers to lock the door behind him. The space is tiny.

Thank goodness I'm not claustrophobic he thinks mundanely. At this point, that's the least of his problems.

He makes eye contact with himself in the mirror. He's finding it hard to swallow, his mouth is so dry. He watches his Adam's Apple bob with the effort. A vein pulses in his neck. Jack puts his palms on either side of the basin and tries to just breathe properly. It's harder than it's ever been in his life.

After he's regained some semblance of calm, he looks around the bathroom. The pine finish on the doors of the cupboards, the walls, the baby changing station is a reassuring yellowish color.

He sees a washcloth hanging off a small silver pole under the mirror. He reaches forward for it. He realizes his hands are trembling like he's being held at gunpoint. He feels weak and drained.

Jack yanks the cloth towards him with such force it makes a zipping sound as it slips off the pole. He scrunches it up in a ball and steps on the water pedal so hard it hits the floor with a metallic clanging noise on the tiles. The water comes blasting out of the tap, breaking the silence like a man through a glass window. It's blessedly cool, almost frigidly so. He puts the cloth under the stream, and within seconds it is soaked.

He lifts his foot, the water shuts off, silence pressing in on him once more. All he can hear is his ragged breaths and the ringing in his ears.

He crushes the cloth in his hands, the excess water trickles down the drain. He can hear the drips falling into some sort of reservoir somewhere in the bowels of the train. He rubs the cloth almost desperately over his face, scrubbing it red.

Within seconds, the cool air in the bathroom meets the wetness on his face, and he feels instant relief. He does the same to the back of his neck. He loosens his tie and pops a couple of buttons down the front of his shirt, wetting his chest as well.

Jack staggers back a little and sits on the closed lid of the toilet. It takes a few seconds but he soon feels well enough to check his watch again, the familiarity of the gesture calming him more. The train was going to depart in thirty seconds.

He sighs.

* * * *

A thief quietly slips on board the train. Patrick Monaghan half-stands on the threshold for a few seconds, heels dangling in the fresh air, doing what people in the business would call casing the joint. He sees that the carriage is mostly empty. There's a man on the left, snoring softly. He's so deeply asleep, before the train has even started departing that Patrick would put money on the fact he's taken medication of some sort.

He moves away from the threshold before his behavior catches the attention of some sort of official and he gets chased away. Again.

He catches sight of himself in the train window. He reaches up and fixes his hair, a spike had flopped over. He ignores his puffy red eyes with dark circles under them, though. Nothing unusual there.

Readjusting his grey sleeve over his black fingerless gloves, he gets down to the job at hand. He starts at the back of the train, tiptoeing past the snoring passenger.

He has what you'd call a ritual, when it comes to looting trains, and he does it with a sort of relaxed charm that can only come from doing what you